Last Joe

As of this evening I am the only Joe left in my family. My Dad passed away this evening at about 7:15 MST. Fortunately my sister Colleen was with him and he passed away peacefully. For that I am thankful.

My family was not that original with names. When I was growing up my Dad’s parents lived across the yard from us. My grandfather’s name was Joseph P. Sologub, my dads name was Joseph W. Sologub and I am Joseph W. Sologub Jr.

When I was growing up. If you said Joe you were talking about my grand father. If you said Joey you were talking about my Dad and if you said Joseph you were talking about me.

Below is a photo of the three Joe’s. We were in the process of halter breaking my first 4H registered Black Angus heifer, so I could show her at the Silver Bow County fair. We had bought her from the Schultz ranch in Dillion Montana. They were a real nice family, and they got me a leather belt buckle that had a Black Angus cow head on it. I wore that Buckle for many years and I believe it is still at my folks house. I wore it when I was showing her at the fair.

Grandpa must have been plowing snow with the Farmall Super M tractor in the background and must have stopped so this picture could be taken. The person taking the photo is in front of my parents house. The White House in the background was my grandparents house. So it gives you a sense how close my grandparents lived to us.

We had that tractor until it sold in the Estate sale two years ago. Both my grandpa and Dad spent many hours on that tractor. Especially my grandpa.

If I had to venture a guess what month this picture was taken I would say it was probably in March, but who knows.

My grandpa died when Jennifer and I were living in Lafayette, LA in 1995. He was I believe 92. He actually committed suicide. He had been diagnosed with Prostate Cancer and he felt that if he went in for surgery that he would end up in a rest home and that was not for him. So he decided to end his life. Late one night he backed his Cadillac out of the garage and ran a vacuum cleaner hose from the exhaust into the back window of the car. My Dad found him the following morning when he was leaving to go to work.

This was very traumatic for my Dad, but he always said my grandfathers death was much easier to take than his Mom’s death, which was a long steady decline in a nursing home. That was why my grandpa was not going to go to a rest home and took his own life. He did not want to waste away in a rest home. So he ended it.

Dad was seeing the handwriting on the wall in his own case. He knew if he continued the treatment of the pneumonia and bacterial UTI he was going to be going to a rest home to rehab and he knew his body was not going to rehab to the point where he could go home, even with my sister Colleen living with them. So he chose to end treatment and let nature runs its course. I totally respect and understand that. I just wish he had made that decision before they started the antibiotics, because I think even though he was only on them for a few days, they had taken a edge off the infection and lengthened his demise. Anyway at this point it does not matter he is out of here.

We will miss him terribly, but we know that he will be able to do all the things he enjoyed doing in heaven that he had not been able to do here now.

Dad was a very active person. He loved to ride horses, but had not been able to do that for many years because of his hip issues. When he was a young boy he was teasing a Holstein bull and he miscalculated his escape options and that bull got him and crushed him up against a corral fence and crushed his pelvis and hips. This was in the 1950’s, long before joint replacements. They put his hips and pelvis back together with rods, pins and sockets. He was fortunate to heal and walk correctly. When I was in high school he had reached the point where he had worn the pins and sockets out and hip replacements were available. So he went to Spokane, WA and had one hip done. He recovered for about a year and the went back and had the other hip replaced. He did pretty good for several years. He was able to ride and do things he enjoyed doing. However he also wore those hips out and then had to have those both replaced. That is when a slew of new problems arose. He got a infection in one of the hips and he ended up going to Denver and they had to remove the infected hip and put in a medicated hip joint which he had to leave in for several weeks and then he went back in and another hip joint was put in.

He recovered from that but then started having back pain issues and end up having back surgery. The his knees started having issues and he had those replaced. The last knee surgery was the one that was the start of his decline. He had the surgery and it went OK. The knee was doing better and he was making progress. He was not going to be running Marathons but he would be able to walk some. However he took a fall in the shower. Structurally the knee was fine, he had not broke it. However, he had torn all of the ligaments and muscles in the leg and surgery was not going to fix the damage. This was the start of him being wheelchair bound. The lifestyle that he had hoped to live was pretty much over at that point.

He had also survived Prostate Cancer during all of these surgeries. So he had spent his fair share of time in rest homes and was no way in hell going to die in one if he could avoid it. Well the good news is he avoided that. He died in the hospital and I am thankful for that.

The good news in all of this is that he got to see so many of the people who were his friends and neighbors before he died and he got to say goodbye to them. My Dad was a very social guy. Some people joked he was the unofficial mayor of Elk Park. For those not familiar with Elk Park. It is the name of the valley where he lived. Dad always liked to talk on the phone and that increased exponentially when he became wheel chair bound. He would spends hours talking with people and it was his way of keeping his finger on the pulse of the community.

Unfortunately towards the end it was becoming a little problematic. Due to his hearing loss, he did not always get the facts right and would misstate things.

Anyway, enough for tonight. I am just starting to babble. I just hope Jennifer met him at the pearly gates and is giving him a tour of the joint and that he gave her the hug and kiss that I asked him to give her. Godspeed Dad I love you and will miss you terribly.